Political Code of the State of New York: The citizens of the state are:1. All persons born in this state and domiciled within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls."California Government Code Sections 240-245 Article 1. General: "The citizens of the State are: (a) All persons born in the State and residing within it, except the children of transient aliens and of alien public ministers and consuls."
There are those who claim that "natural born citizen" is strictly synonymous with "born a citizen," "citizen from birth" or "citizen by reason of birth." If that were true, then anyone who was a citizen either from the moment of birth, or because of the facts of birth, would be a "natural born citizen." That theory can be be disproven as follows:
The other issue in dispute regarding the interpretation of the 14th Amendment and the Supreme Court's decision in Wong Kim Ark is whether any and all who are "born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are natural born citizens, as proven by application of semantics and logic to the syntax of and terms used in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, or whether the syntax and terminology allow some of those "born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to be natural citizens while yet others are naturalized citizens.
Those who claim that the 14th Amendment declares all those "born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" to also necessarily be Constitutionally-defined as natural born citizens by those words in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment base their argument on three assertions: a) natural citizenship and naturalized citizenship are mutually exclusive (not disputed,) b) in the phrase "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," the conjunction or is exclusive disjunction, and c) therefore, the 14th Amendment is asserting that being "born in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" and being "naturalized in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are mutually exclusive.
The counter-argument: The conjunction or in English is usually used to signify inclusive disjunction, which means that the alternatives are not mutually exclusive. Although or in English can signify exclusive disjunction, it is uncommon for that to be the intent in the absence of auxiliary, modifying words or phrases in context that make it clear that the two alternatives are intended to be exclusive. But there is no reason in the historical record that indicates that the intent of those who authored and ratified the 14th Amendment was to Constitutionally assert that citizenship by birth in the US was mutually exclusive with citizenship by naturalization within the US. That distinction had nothing to do with the controversies that motivated the ratification of the Amendment. Citizenship in general was the issue, not whether or not anyone was or was not a natural citizen—by birth or otherwise. The same is true of the issue of record before the Court in Wong Kim Ark.
Although being a natural citizen and being a naturalized citizen are mutually exclusive, being born a citizen (a citizen from and by reason of birth) and being a naturalized citizen are not. When the 14th Amendment was ratified, the laws of Britain and of the several States absolutely included cases where those born in the country acquired citizenship, at birth, by naturalization, and not by the principles of natural law—as proven in my essay. There is no evidence that changing that fact was among the reasons or motivations for the 14th Amendment.
Even if the intent had been to change who was or was not a natural citizen, it is logically impossible for any positive law—even a Constitutional Amendment—to change who are or are not natural citizens—also as proven in my essay. The attempt to do so would violate the Law Of Non-Contradiction, because of the very definition of natural law. Positive law can be declaratory of natural law, but no law can make anything be what it is not. The law cannot convert lead into gold, nor prevent the Sun from rising in the morning.
The purpose of constraint predicates in the subject of a sentence is to denote or describe, not to mandate or prescribe. The purpose of the subject of a sentence is to identify or name the subject or topic of discussion, not to specify prescriptive mandates. It's the predicate phrase of a sentence that's supposed to do that. Based on its syntactical structure, the point and purpose of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment is to prescriptively define anyone and everyone who fully satisfies the denotational semantics of the constraint predicate expressions (set membership rules) in the subject of the sentence as citizens of the United States, and of the State in which they reside—and that's all.
The 14th Amendment does not say "All persons born as natural citizens or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. and of the State in which they reside." But that hypothetical version of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment must be perfectly synonymous with the actual text, if it is in fact true that all who are "born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," are also logically and semantically required to be natural born citizens by definition. Why? Because the assertion under discussion is precisely that "born in the US and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" is the very definition of a natural born citizen. It that's true, then adding the modifier "as a natural citizen" cannot possibly change the meaning, because the claim is that "born" already means exactly that in the phrase under discussion.
But the addition of the adjectival phrase "as natural citizens," modifying "born" in the hypothetical version of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, absolutely does change the meaning of the sentence. Why? Because that hypothetical version of the rule excludes anyone who isn't "born as a natural citizen in the US" or who isn't naturalized. So that version of the rule would have excluded all those residents of the United States alive at the moment the Amendment was ratified who either hadn't been naturalized, or who hadn't been born as natural citizens—which would have excluded every single former slave of African descent (who hadn't already been naturalized) from having been made citizens by the 14th Amendment!
But that just cannot be the intent! The most urgent purpose and intent of the 14th Amendment was to make citizens of those who were neither born as citizens nor naturalized as citizens, but who had in fact been born in the United States and subject to its its jurisdiction at the time. Therefore, it is categorically impossible that "born in the United States, and subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to be perfectly synonymous with "natural born citizen," including and excluding all the same persons.
So, given the totality of the evidence and constraints regarding the interpretation and construction of the 14th Amendment, the correct reading is 'All persons are citizens of the United States who are subject to the jurisdiction thereof when born in the United States or when naturalized in the Unites States, or both' (inclusive disjunction.) That interpretation aligns perfectly with the known intent and motivation: To ensure that anyone who was or is either born in the US or naturalized in the US (or both) and where either of those events occur in the United States while the person is subject to the jurisdiction thereof, shall be deemed to be a citizen of the United States and of the State in which they reside.
To summarize: All citizens are either natural or naturalized. The 14th Amendment is declaratory of the citizenship of all those who are natural citizens without needing the Amendment to be such, but who also satisfy the citizenship rules specified by the Amendment. But for those who would not be citizens but for the 14th Amendment, it makes them citizens by naturalizationby definition of naturalization, which is to deem or declare someone a citizen by positive law enacted by any political entity—such as a statute, or a Constitutional Amendment passed by Congress and ratified by the State legislatures.
You can get a preview of some of the improvements I’ve made in the last week to my NBC essay in post #159